Part 121 (1/2)

”Where is he? where? where?”

”What is that to thee?”

”Only to see him alive. To beg him on my knees forgive me. I swear to you I will never presume again to--How could I? He knows all. Oh, shame!

Father, _does_ he know?”

”All.”

”Then never will I meet his eye; I should sink into the earth. But I would repair my crime. I would watch his life unseen. He shall rise in the world, whence I so nearly thrust him, poor soul; the Caesare, my family, are all-powerful in Rome; and I am near their head.”

”My daughter,” said Clement, coldly, ”he you call Gerard needs nothing man can do for him. Saved by a miracle from double death, he has left the world, and taken refuge from sin and folly in the bosom of the Church.”

”A priest?”

”A priest, and a friar.”

”A friar? Then you are not his confessor? Yet you know all. That gentle voice!”

She raised her head slowly, and peered at him through her mask.

The next moment she uttered a faint shriek, and lay with her brow upon his bare feet.

CHAPTER LXXVII

CLEMENT sighed. He began to doubt whether he had taken the wisest course with a creature so pa.s.sionate.

But young as he was, he had already learned many lessons of ecclesiastical wisdom. For one thing he had been taught to pause: _i.

e._, in certain difficulties, neither to do nor say anything, until the matter should clear itself a little.

He therefore held his peace and prayed for wisdom.

All he did was gently to withdraw his foot.

But his penitent flung her arms round it with a piteous cry, and held convulsively, and wept over it.

And now the agony of shame, as well as penitence, she was in, showed itself by the bright red that crept over her very throat, as she lay quivering at his feet.

”My daughter,” said Clement gently, ”take courage. Torment thyself no more about this Gerard, who is not. As for me, I am brother Clement, whom Heaven hath sent to thee this day to comfort thee, and help thee save thy soul. Thou hast made me thy confessor. I claim, then, thine obedience.”

”Oh, yes,” sobbed the penitent.

”Leave this pilgrimage, and instant return to Rome. Penitence abroad is little worth. There where we live lie the temptations we must defeat, or perish; not fly in search of others more showy, but less lethal. Easy to wash the feet of strangers, masked ourselves. Hard to be merely meek and charitable with those about us.”

”I'll never, never, lay finger on her again.”

”Nay, I speak not of servants only, but of dependents, kinsmen, friends.